Margie Johnson Reese has a 30-year portfolio as an arts management professional and has contributed to public policy in areas of public participation in the arts, public art policy and practice, community development, and cultural master planning and her career has included arts leadership in Dallas and Los Angeles.  She has been an advisor to the nation’s most diverse communities. She has worked directly with artists and other creative professionals to enhance their employment and business opportunities, in both the nonprofit and commercial sectors. She has guided the development of numerous cultural facilities and managing architectural design, budget and staff to guarantee that pubic service is a priority.

She served as a grant maker for the Ford Foundation in their Office for West Africa as the Program Officer for Media, Arts and Culture. In that capacity, she cites among her major accomplishments funding the restoration of the slave castles in Ghana and Nigeria and providing funding to preserve the ancient Arabic manuscripts of Timbuktu in Mali.

Margie formed MJR Partners, LLC in 2010, and provides professional arts management services and guidance to communities for planning, stabilizing and implementing inclusive public policy. Her clients have engaged her services to assist in stimulating strategic partnerships between the cultural sector and government agencies, foundations, corporations, and academic institutions to advance cultural understanding. She is a professor at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, teaching Cultural Policy in the Arts in the graduate Arts Administration program. A graduate of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington with a BS in Speech and Theater, Margie holds an MFA in Theater from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Website: http://www.margiejohnsonreese.com/

Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. As a writer, he served as the Executive Editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, and the Huffington Post. He was the Director of Programming for IVY, the founding General Manager of the Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, and was the General Manager for Armitage Gone! Dance and Youth America Grand Prix. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance, and is on the advisory committee for the Parsons Dance Company. He also serves on the Leaders of Color steering committee at Americans for the Arts. He has given talks at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the 92Y, the Guggenheim's Works & Process, the Museum at F.I.T., the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Purchase College, the Joffrey Ballet School, among others, and has collaborated with Ballet West, Pennsylvania Ballet, Arena Stages, and New York City Center.

Websites: www.yellowface.org 

Instagram: @philschan | @finalbowforyellowface

Twitter: @philschan